ENGLISH FLIERS VISIT MOTHER OF FRIEND IN AMES - If you saw some unfamiliar uniforms and heard some British accents in Ames today, here are the two reasons why: Jimmy Gilbert of Cambridge, England, and Jimmy Harrison of Preston, in Lancastershire, England, who were here to visit Mr. and Mrs. E.M. Throckmorton, parents of a Yankee soldier the Englishmen knew in Ireland.

The Throckmortons' son, Richard, is now a prisoner of the German government.  He was captured during the African campaign, and for a long time had been reported merely as missing in action.  It was during his stay with the U.S. forces in Ireland that he became a friend of Gilbert.  He visited Gilbert's home in Cambridge on a furlough, and Gilbert promised in return that he would visit Throckmorton's mother should the opportunity arise.

Gilbert and Harrison are now among British boys taking flying courses at the British Flying Training school in Terrell, Tex.  They have just finished primary training there, and have a nine-day leave before continuing with advanced work in Texas.  There are also some American boys at the school who are also cadets, Gilbert reported.

Both men wear the blue uniform of the Royal Air Force cadet.  The RAF is an independent unit, part of neither the army or navy, they explained.  Both volunteered for duty.  Gilbert, who has been in service for three years, was doing ground photo work in England before that service was taken over by the WAAF.  Harrison was a civilian before joining the RAF and coming to America, and has been in service a shorter length of time.

Gilbert first met Throckmorton of Ames at an Orangemen's club in Ireland, he reported.  From the first meeting, "Wherever I went Throckmorton went with me," Gilbert said.  He met quite a few other men from Ames in Ireland, also.

The Englishmen vividly recounted some of their experiences in America.  They hitch-hiked up to Ames, and most people were very nice to them, they said, although one woman in a southern state was first suspicious of them because she thought maybe they were "Yankees."

At Denison, Ia., where Gilbert ordered a glass of ice tea in a restaurant, the waitress merely asked him, "Are you kidding?"  Cause of her question was, as she explained, that he "talked just like Freddie Bartholomew,"  She said he was the first Englishman she had ever met, a fact frequently remarked in the U.S., the men said.

But it is not really difficult to find one's way around in a strange country, Harrison said.  "You just wet your thumb, cross your fingers and hope for the best," he concluded.

David Trueblood

February 3, 1944

Staff Sergt. David Trueblood wrote on his father's birthday, Jan. 23, and told them that he was somewhere in England, that the V-mail letters were coming through fine and considering the amount of mail handled, it gets through in good shape.  He says his appetite is enormous, but he misses good pasteurized milk, and he has had only an orange and a half since landing there, and that he was expecting fried eggs the next day - the third time he's had them.  And the cookies he got were dee-licious, along with the candy.  He says it takes three to four weeks to get clothes back from the cleaners, and that he was anxious to get the bunch back he had sent, for he was due for a furlough soon.

He adds in closing: "My boss in the shop says I'm the biggest chow hound there is - he was about 10 minutes later than I getting up to the chow-house -- and I was up for seconds when he sat down for his first.  He told me that he should keep me back until the last so the other men could have a chance.

I'm glad my new allotment is coming through -- that dough will look good some day when we get home.  I had better sign off so this won't weigh too much.  I am sergeant of the guard tonight; wind is howling like fury; can hardly stand or drive in it.  Just got back from a run that took nearly two hours and should have taken 15 minutes."